Great Crusade
by GrimReaperJr1232
Summary: The legions of Ashfeld are devastated. After an unexpected invasion from the Samurai, the legions send their troops to be commanded and led by a single man hellbent on making this one grand crusade in the name of God. Deus lo Vult! Based on the Season 9 Campaign 1 faction war, and exists because of a joke suggestion I made on Reddit.


**So, anyone remember how in season 9 campain 1 the samurai just ended up dominating? I mean, holy shit, the widely mocked "weebs" suddenly got their shit together and decimated everyone, especially the knights. Maybe it has something to do with the ps+ members like me getting the game (I joined the knights) and most of them decided to go with the samurai, I don't know. Regardless, it's the reason this fic exists… along with the fact I already said I'd do so on Reddit because the fact you only get ornaments as a reward is bullshit. **

**I should mention a few things before starting.**

**1\. I upped the Knight's religious aspect. Actually, more like made it existent to begin with. Why? Because considering Vikings existed whenever this "cataclysmic event" happened, most likely means that they were around when Catholicism was getting pretty popular is Europe, and this was the most obvious way for me to justify using the term "Crusade." Plus, let's be honest, Knights, we're all shouting DEUS VULT whenever we're charging into battle.**

**2\. I'm an idiot. That means, don't expect anywhere near the same level of quality as in actual For Honor in regards to siege tactics, actual dueling (I'm not that great at describing fights), etc. That being said, if you have any decent sources on these topics, I'd be glad to see 'em. **

**3\. Given the above, you might be thinking "why the hell are you doing this if you're a moron?" It's because if I don't this idea will never leave my head. If nothing else, this'll get it out of my system.**

**4\. Considering there are three main languages here (Latin, Icelandic, and Japanese), expect gratuitous language shifts. In the case of Japanese or Icelandic though, think of it as bits that no one understands. (Note: the translations may be a bit… off though. Again, I'm a dumbass)**

**5\. And finally, I'm giving the characters names. Otherwise, calling everyone Conqueror, Berserker (he was number one!), and Piece of sh—I meant, Shinobi would get redundant quick. I did do a bit of research so all the knights either have Germanic or Latin names (although, anyone else find it weird how Vortiger who **_**is **_**a canon Knight has a variant of a Celtic name (the original being Gwrtheyrn)?), Vikings have Norse, etc. **

* * *

The past year had been hard for the Knights of every legion. For reasons currently unknown, the Samurai had somehow gained a massive increase in manpower that they had never had before, allowing them to catch both the Knights and even some of the Vikings off-guard.

Used to dealing small albeit formidable numbers, the strongholds built to deal with them were simply overwhelmed as the bulk of the legions were usually sent to deal with the innumerable and aggressive Warborn Vikings.

By the time the legions understood what was going on, it was already too late. The Samurai had taken much of the legions' territories, including Mount Ignis where most of the legion's metals were mined to make weapons, armor, and the like, causing them to be underequipped and severely starved of valuable resources.

In response to this, for the first time in years, the various legions united for a great crusade to regain their lost territories, even suspending attacks against the Warborn who—like them—had been greatly weakened by the Samurai.

The leader of this crusade was a former Black Prior, Damon. Once he had served under Apollyon, he now claims that he shall make his penance by retaking their lands and conquering theirs in the Lord's name, proclaiming himself to be a grandmaster of a new holy legion. Once, everyone would call him a fanatic, but in desperate times, everyone needs faith to cling onto—something that gave him no small amount of supporters.

One of these was a Warden, trained by an ancient order whose origins were long forgotten to time. While faithful, his zeal was not why he had chosen to participate in the crusade. As both a knight and a Warden, he long ago swore oaths of fealty to his legion's warchief, who after a meeting with Damon himself, had chosen to give the crusade his full support like many of the other legions before him.

"Val? Val, you around here?" The Warden looked back and saw another soldier wandering the fields. The soldier was large and brawny, a conqueror who was once a measly foot soldier who survived long enough to rise through the ranks.

The Conqueror shook his head and groaned as he kept searching. Muttering to himself, the Conqueror said, "I swear, I'm going to kill that Warden when I find him."

"You're welcome to try, Dante." The Warden, Val chuckled letting his comrade know where he was.

"There you are," Dante called, quickly marching to find the Warden sitting on a log, using a cloth to polish his sword. "Still donning the black armor, huh?" Like many of the other crusaders, Dante, the Conqueror wore white with a red cross supposedly drawing influence from a long-dead organization that was all but forgotten save a few mentions in what remains of their ancestor's past.

Conversely, Val kept his armor black save for a few spots where the Red Cross had been painted on and outlined in white. "It helps prevent rust." He replied, choosing practicality over displaying any fanaticism. "Metal is in short supply these days, we can't afford to waste any for the sake of vanity."

"The grandmaster wouldn't approve…" Dante crossed his arms, leaning backwards and his helmet hiding what was most likely a smirk underneath.

Val cleared his throat for a moment before saying, "The siege of—"

"Oh come on, we would've died!" Dante objected before he could finish that sentence. Leave it to the Warden to ruin everything in just one sentence.

"Why did you come here?" Val asked, putting the cloth away and picking up his sword. "Have the scouts returned?"

Dante nodded, "They returned saying that the fort had been attacked a few days before and that they were currently awaiting reinforcements," He answered, "the grandmaster is taking this as the opportunity to strike and wants everyone moving."

"Attacked? By who?" The Black Knight asked, tilting his head slightly to the side.

"Turns out, we're not the only ones the Samurai have pissed off." Dante laughed, walking away while gesturing his friend to follow.

"Warborn then?" Val concluded, following the larger soldier. "Did Damon say how we were going to penetrate the fortress without causing any major damage?"

"He said something about there being hidden tunnels that had been dug out and mapped in case an escape route was needed." Dante explained, "They're pretty narrow, so only a few small groups can enter at a time until someone opens the gates."

"Then it's a good thing the Warborn attacked when they did then," Val mused. "Maybe it'll be like Daubney."

"Who?" Dante asked, having never heard of the name and with good reason.

"I think it was the last person the warchief of the Iron Legion served before being officially knighted," He answered. "Then again, a lot of things have been said about him… or is it a her?"

"Don't ask me," Dante shrugged, "all I care about is where I need to go, who I need to kill, and what I'll get for it."

"Of course you do."

…

…

"Keep quiet," Val whispered to the soldiers beside him from the cramped tunnels, clutching onto his sword tightly as to not risk losing it. Everyone was walking in a single file line, with a few up ahead to warn when they were near the exit. Even with the torches, it was difficult for Val to see clearly through his visor, almost tempting him to take if off were it not for the risk that came with it.

Each of these men was short in stature, or maybe the Warden was just a giant. Ordinary footmen were never large to begin with, but malnourishment caused by the lack of resources after the great cataclysm seemed to make everything worse. Most of these soldiers were probably hoping they'd survive just long enough so that they—like Dante—could become a Conqueror as well, finally being able to go nights without starving. Still, their short stature was advantageous for the current scenario.

The Tunnels were too small and narrow for the likes of a Conqueror like Dante, or Black Prior like Damon, or most of the other knights in the vicinity. Normally, this would be handled by the likes of a Peacekeeper, but despite the Viking attack, the samurai were still numerous and she would quickly be overwhelmed. Hence, Damon sent a Warden to accompany the soldiers to open the gate and bring a quick end to this.

"Put out your torches," a warning came from ahead. One at a time, the torches that had been guiding them were put out, shrouding everyone in pitch darkness were it not for the small glimpses of light at the end.

The soldiers ahead peaked through to ensure no one was watching before slowly opening the iron gate as quickly and quietly as possible. One at a time the soldiers exited the tunnels, coming together into standard formation.

"Keep a look out," Val warned them. "They must be watching the walls."

This is good. If they could keep the element of surprise, they may be able to overwhelm them quickly and open—

"Shinnyū-sha!"

Val looked up to see one of the Japanese soldier warning his comrades before hearing a scream beside him as an arrow hit a soldier.

"Dammit," he cursed, pointing his sword at a group of the soldiers, "you all come with me to deal with the archers. The rest of you, take the courtyard!"

The soldiers all cried out, marching into the courtyard as quickly as they could while the enemy also sent their own men meet them. The Samurai footmen were already battle ready, but they brought enough men to hold them back for now.

Dashing up the stairs to the top of the wall with soldiers behind him, Val readied his sword as he faced the enemy archers. "Nōn superstites!" he shouted, signaling his men to attack.

The archers reached to pull out their blades from their sheaths, most of the ones in the front were unable to do so in time before the Knight's solders drove their blades into their hearts. The rest were lambs to the slaughter with the soldier being supported by a Warden.

With one hand on the handle and another on the blade itself, Val impaled another one of the soldiers before throwing them off the wall. He looked around at the corpses and saw that some of them still had bows and arrows in decent condition.

"Men, take their bows and help the men in the courtyard." He ordered. "When I kill the commander, be ready to open the gates."

Another wave of Samurai soldiers approached, eager to reclaim the point. Another wave of blood spilt as the Warden's blade sliced through their flesh like it was parchment, the force shattering their wooden shields.

What a senseless waste of human life.

Cutting through the last of them, Val moved to the gatehouse to find that the door unmoving, seemingly being barred from the other side. Glancing down at the courtyard, he saw the men beginning to be pushed back by the Samurai soldiers. If he didn't hurry, they would all be slaughtered.

Taking a step back taking a deep breath, Val charged forward and rammed his shoulder into the door with all his might, taking it off its hinges and falling on top of the soldier who had been pushing themselves against it.

The soldier tried to lift the fallen door to free himself, but instead found himself groaning in pain as Val stepped onto the door, crushing him beneath their combined weight. The Warden slowly shook his head before bringing his blade down and stabbing through the soldier's cranium.

"Shinu junbi o shinasai, kishi!" Val looked and saw a Kensei taking her battle stance with her nodachi. It was safe to assume she was the commander of the samurai here.

Stepping off the dead soldier, Val readied himself to duel the Samurai. "After you," he said in response, raising his guard. Her armor is wooden, but thick like all Kensei. She definitely had the speed advantage, but even that sword was going to have trouble slicing through chainmail.

The Kensei dashes forward, raising her sword above her head to put all her strength into her attack to end this in a single decisive blow.

Val reacted quickly, moving to the left to evade her blow while making two fast, light slashes to her side. The Kensei let out a suppressed scream in pain, and the Warden backed up and prepared for retaliation.

She wound up her another slow but powerful attack coming from the left, prompting Val to brace himself in an effort to parry the blow, but Kensei pulled back at the last moment and instead left a quick swipe on his right denting the plated armor hidden beneath the leather.

Flinching in reaction to the attack, the Kensei took the opportunity to strike his head with the pummel of her sword, temporarily stunning him long enough to through him through the opening he had entered from.

Regaining control of himself and able to _just_ prevent himself from falling, the Warden quickly readied his guard again as the Samurai approached.

"Kōfuku shinasai, soshite watakushi wa anata ni mutsū shi o yakusoku suru," She said, pausing a moment to await his response. She didn't even know if she understood a word she said, but she hoped that he would at least understand what was being implied.

"Appreciate the offer," Val chuckled as he watched for any signs of an attack, "but I'm not dying here."

Unable to understand his words, but still understanding what they meant, the Kensei raised her sword again to attack.

This time, Val was the one to take initiative, dashing forward only to leave two more quick strikes to the right. Using his momentum to his advantage Val use his last downwards to strike to perform a brief twirl allowing him to have his sword raised again with enough force to break almost any guard.

The Kensei saw this and made an effort to dodge to her right, but move just too late as the blade struck her left shoulder, cutting through the armor and flesh hidden beneath it.

The Samurai let out a scream, almost dropping her weapon to clutch her wound as she took several steps back and hissed as she tried to keep control of her pain.

"Morior invictus, I take it?" Val asked, despite both knowing the answer and that she couldn't speak his tongue.

The Samurai dashed forward again, quickly slashing to her right only to find the knight having read her movements and blocked her attack. Putting the last of her strength into one more attack, she raised her sword above her head again and swung it downwards.

With his right hand gripped his sword's handle and the other one the other end of the blade itself, Val held his blade up and successfully managed to parry the attack. Shifting his weight, he forced the Kensei to left, where he quickly struck her with the pummel of his sword like she had done to him.

Still holding his weapon in a half-sword, Val thrust his blade as hard as he could, and allowing him to punch through the thick armor and into the woman's chest.

Retracting his blade, the woman fell to her knees, defeated and dying. Kensei looked up one more time at her killer, her mask no doubt hiding a look of scorn and contempt for the knight who was raising his blade to finish her off.

"Requiescat in pace," he said, swinging his sword and cutting her head from her shoulders, and her body fell limp onto the ground.

Some of the legion's soldiers saw that the enemy commander had been eliminated, and were either opening the gate as ordered or pushing back harder with their morale renewed as the enemy's waned. Victory was certain; it was only a matter of who'd be a alive to see it.

Val heard a cry from behind him and then felt something impact hard against his back, knocking him forward from the force of the unforeseen attack, almost causing him to fall off the edge if he hadn't caught himself in time.

Turning with a wild horizontal swing, his attacker jumped back, keeping his sword up and ready to strike again. Like the Kensei, this one wore wooden armor, but look significantly less cumbersome and—

And it was an Orochi, of course. Why did it have to be an Orochi?

"Nigashi wa senu!" The Orochi said, holding his sword in a reverse grip before dashing forward.

The distance was too little to try and guard against it, and it would be suicide to try lest he fall to his death. Instead, the knight quickly dashed and rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding being decapitated by the Samurai's katana.

"_Damn," _Val though, getting back on his feet and left to slowly walk backwards down steps leading into the courtyard. Orochi, an assassin that he always dreads with every rare encounter; they're fast—too fast for him to keep up, especially in this metal armor. The chainmail won't let his sword cut through him, but nothing will stop the force that comes with it nor would it stop the blade from simply piercing through it instead.

It was a longshot, but he was going to have to hope that either he could outlast him or that the Samurai would let his cockiness get the better of him.

"I wasn't planning on running away," Val muttered in response to the assassin's cry.

The Orochi went on the offensive almost immediately.

Dashing forward and closing the already small gap between them, and began a vicious onslaught of attacks. When Val attempted to guard against an attack on his right, the assassin was already slashing at his left.

The Samurai wound up, waiting just long enough to get an instinctual reaction before revealing itself to be nothing more than a faint and attacking the other side with a quick slash, followed by another powerful swing that likely would have cut any ordinary person in half.

Attack after attack, sparks flew as the Samurai's katana tried and failed to cut through the chainmail or the plated armor hidden beneath the leather at the abdomen. Even without any cuts, Val could feel the beating the sword was giving him begin to wear him down while his opponent didn't look so much as winded. His arms were barely able to hold up his sword, and he likely had a couple broken ribs.

Flinching from another attack from the left to his abdomen, Val was left helpless when the Orochi struck his helmet, causing him to lose balance and fall to the ground.

Shaking his head and fighting through his daze, Val saw the assassin standing above him, ready to drive his sword straight into his heart.

Before the blade could piece through his armor and flesh, the warden grabbed the katana by its blade with both of his hands in an effort to save his life.

Holding onto the blade with all the strength his bruised body could muster, Val struggled as the Orochi continued to push the blade, slicing through the Warden's gloves and the hands beneath them.

Just as the blade was about to press between the tiny gap where the two metal plates met, Val saw another soldier charge into the Samurai, knocking them away and saving his life in the process.

Getting back on his feet, the Warden reached for his sword, only to have another placed in front of him by his rescuer.

"I'll deal with him… alone, Warden."

Val was about to object, but his words were lost when he realized who was standing in front of him. There, dressed in armor worn by ancestors who were all but forgotten and armed with a sword and kite shield was the self-proclaimed grandmaster and leader of this Holy Crusade.

"Y-Yes, grandmaster Damon," Val obeyed. He had sworn an oath of fealty at the start of this crusade like the rest of them, and oaths—especially ones made from a Warden—were not easily broken.

Val could almost swear he could hear chuckling coming from that beneath the grandmaster's helmet as he walked towards the assassin, banging his sword against his shield almost as an act of provocation.

The Samurai paused for a moment, either from hesitation or trying to judge where to strike first.

Suddenly, the Orochi dashed, prepared to attack the same way he had done to the Warden before him.

This time, however, the assassin was only met with a swift bash from a shield and a sword quickly stabbing his unarmored side.

The Orochi dropped his weapon screaming in pain that only continued when Damon pushed him off his blade and let him fall face-first onto the floor.

Val could swear that beneath the grandmaster's helmet was a grin akin to that of a child's when he drove his massive shield into the Samurai's back, all before grabbing them by the collar and slitting his throat, and leaving him to bleed to death.

"Christ," Val whispered, quickly following his words by forming the cross with his right hand. Were all Black Priors like this?

"I see you've taken quite the beating," Val turned his head and saw a familiar conqueror walking towards him, "let me guess, an Orochi?"

"I fought a Kensei as well." Val added, slowly moving his aching arms to put his sword back in its sheath. The remaining Japanese soldiers either seemed to be submitting themselves to humiliation of being kept prisoner or turning their own weapons on themselves to avoid such a fate.

"How bad was the wait?" The Warden found himself asking.

"I almost betted against you in the pool," Dante shrugged, chuckling to himself. It sounds like someone just earned a lot of coin. "But, you almost manage to survive somehow."

"Speaking of which," Val said before walking as quickly walking to the grandmaster who was currently wiping the blood from his blade, staining the white fabric he wore crimson.

"Is there something you wish to ask, Warden?" Damon's question was immediate, but something in his voice made it seem like he was only half paying attention.

"What are your intentions with the prisoners, Lord Damon?" Val asked, "Very few—if any—of us know Japanese, so inter—"

"Oh, I am very aware of this," Damon let out another low chuckled, facing the center of the courtyard that had become littered with bodies, most belonging to the defenders of this holding. "They will all be burnt in a pyre within a few hours."

"Burnt?" Val repeated, shocked. "But… surely, that's—"

"I believe that the Japanese consider being taken prisoner as the ultimate act of humiliation, yes?" Damon responded, raising his voice to the point of shouting as if he were already imagining it in his head. "Consider this my act of mercy. And by being sacrificed to the flames, their souls will be purified for the next world."

"I… see." Val backed down. Regardless of his personal stances, orders were orders.

"Good," Damon said. It was hard to tell if he was pleased with himself, or if it was something else entirely—and Val wasn't sure if he wanted to know. "Now, I believe some rooms in the barracks just became available; you should use one of them."

"Yes, my lord." Val nodded, and slowly dragged himself off to what he assumed were the barracks.

The Warden looked around and saw the bodies of the fallen Japanese being separated from the knights, likely with the intent of using them for the fire as well. If there was one thing Damon was, that was dedicated to both this crusade and burning whatever he deems unholy.

* * *

**So yeah, this is what happens when you make a stupid suggestion on Reddit.**

**This was my first time trying to do an actual somewhat realistic battle (and I suck at writing fights anyway), so if it seems amateurish, that's why. But yeah, I'm going full-on Templar for this fic, which is ironic considering the Templars were actually pretty tolerant folk (they worked with muslim theologians, merchants, etc)…. Too bad they were killed off since some royal prick owed them a lot of money.**

**And yes, the Orochi fight was a reference the Orochi light spamming… those goddamn mother—**

**My apologies for my sudden outburst, I just get very angry, very quickly. To those that don't light spam Orochi, thank you. And those that don't light-shield-light spam with Black Priors, thank you as well. Actually, thank everyone who doesn't spam constantly.**

**Oh, and one more thing. Is the language shifting too much? I mean, you're not supposed to know what the Samurai are saying, but is the Latin causing any annoyance? And am I being to exposition heavy? I should almost mention I am intentionally adding more into the AN/s so that the chapter doesn't end in an odd number, because I hate them for reasons I cannot explain.**


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